Thanks for Playing with Me
by MetallicTaste
Summary: Set in the wake of Episode 8, "The Lonely Pooch Planet, Baby". QT feels bad that Meow never got to play with P.U.P., and Dandy sort of agrees. Maybe he can make Meow feel better. Maybe, but only after that cat takes a freaking bath. Gen. A bit of fluff. Meow/Dandy/QT friendship.


**AN: Hello! I was disappointed by the low number of Space Dandy fanfic in existence (those of y'all that have already published: you're awesome!), so I decided to try and help haha. I've never really been part of a fandom on the early side of it coming out, so this will be pretty interesting. If anybody wants to talk about the show or headcanon or anything, PM me!**

**I'm looking to improve the story, so any criticisms I could get about, well, anything in the story would be great. **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**BANG BANG BANG**

The pounding of fists on the door startled the naked Betelgeusian, causing his fur to instantly stand on end.

"I don't hear washing, CAT!" accused a human voice from outside of the bathroom. Breaking his transfixed gaze from the empty bathtub, Meow darted to the door of the bathroom and started to bang back against it.

"I don't need a bath!" wailed the feline alien, "I'm clean! I lick myself clea-"

"MEOW, I don't care _what_ you do to yourself instead of helping around the ship, but your stink is probably what's been driving away all of the honeys!" Dandy shouted over the ruckus of Meow's tantrum. "Now take a bath for once!"

"No! I won't do it!"

"Do it or we'll make you."

"No no no no..."

Hearing the chorus of 'no' from beyond the door, Dandy and QT looked to one another. In understanding, the robot chimed in light autotune, "It's for the best."

Nodding, Dandy gestured towards his alien hunting suit that he donned in anticipation of that situation. "I don't know how many times I'm going to need to wash this once his rancid hair touches it, though. That shady, freeloading feline..." The alien hunter complained, unconsciously bringing a hand up to brush his pompadour. "You ready, QT?"

With a nod, the robot unlocked the door and opened it. Immediately, a streak of beige flew between Dandy and QT as Meow took off like a bat out of hell. Or, so he would have, if QT hadn't darted an extended arm around meow's waist and scooped the flailing Betelgeusian into the air.

"No no you can't make me I HATE WATER!" Meow cried, frantically waving his limbs.

As QT tried to pull him into the bathroom, the cat grabbed the door frame with both paws. Impressively, his desperation matched the robot's mechanical strength, and QT began to display a frustrated face on his screen as he fruitlessly tried to yank him through. "A little help here, Dandy?" QT out, but a quick swivel of the head confirmed that the alien hunter wasn't where he was before.

"You can't do this to me, you monsters! LEMME GO!" Meow yelled in a panicked frenzy, trying to squirm out of the robot's grasp.

The clacking of Dandy's boots warned the struggling parties of his return, but neither expected him to round the hallway sporting a surgical mask and carrying a silver canister of gas that he tucked under his left arm. Dandy brandished the hose with his right hand as he approached the struggling feline and turned the nozzle, expelling a green gas into Meow's face.

"WHA'D'YOU THINK you're... doing..." Meow trailed off and his eyes drooped shut. A few unintelligible gasps and grunts escaped his mouth as the sleeping gas took its toll on him. QT relinquished his grip, and the cat swayed from side to side until he keeled over rather ungracefully onto his belly.

After a few seconds of silence between Dandy and QT, the robot eventually asked what needed to be asked: "How is he going to take a bath now?"

Dandy sighed with another unconscious brush to his pompadour. "Well, I guess sometimes a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, baby."

After a moment's silence, QT evenly replied, "I will always remember your sacrifice, Dandy."

Dandy, crinkling his nose at the smell of dead fish, threw the unconscious feline over his shoulder and stepped into the bathtub, dumping him into it with a bit more care than perhaps he would have had Meow been awake. Stepping outside of the tub, the alien hunter grabbed a bottle of shampoo and aimed the shower head.

* * *

Meow's eyes opened, and he immediately shut them when the bright light of the bathroom poured in. The Betelgeusian groaned as he tried to turn away from the light, only to be perplexed by the uncomfortableness of wherever he was. And he noticed this odd sensation in his fur.

The Betelgeusian's eyes snapped open. He remembered where he was, sat up, and examined his fur in horror. It was sticking out in _every direction_. _Poofy._ He brought his forearm up to his nose and sniffed. The lavender scent the product had left on his fur was kind of nice, he had to admit to himself, but he missed the old comforting scent of fish. Meow bolted upright and scrambled out of the bathtub to get to the mirror.

"I'm going to kill you, Dandy!" He angrily muttered to himself as he went to work trying to lick down the untamed fur, until he realized that it would take much more than that to get the job done. He rummaged through the cabinet under the sink furiously until he found a comb and went to work trying to tame the horribly rebellious fur.

* * *

"Dandy?"

Lounging in the captains chair, the pompadoured alien hunter, back in his normal and stylish clothing, looked up from his Boobies magazine and regarded QT. In his deep voice, he replied, "Yeah, QT?"

"I feel bad for Meow." QT was given a look from Dandy that seemed to be a mixture of surprise and perplexity. "He did get called a perverted stinky freeloader a lot today," QT explained.

With a dismissive _hmph_, Dandy turned back to his Boobies magazine and retorted, "You're a robot, aren't you like, incapable, of feeling bad for someone?" After a moment's silence, he continued more quietly, "and besides, he _is_. And you know it too. He just mooches, gives bad info, and smells bad all the time."

QT's gaze shifted downward. "Well, I guess it's not that so much as that I feel bad that he never got to-"

Dandy threw down his magazine angrily, almost shouting, "Don't bring up P.U.P." Calming down a bit, he continued, "and besides, the freaking cat was just being a goddamn reminder of the kind of people that sent her to be alone in that godforsaken planet in the first place. It's just not fair! Someone was being horrible to her all the way until..." He started to tear up, and shook his head.

Undeterred, the robot finished his thought. "He really wanted to play with her." An uncomfortable silence enveloped the room, and the human picked up his precious Boobies magazine to inspect it for damage.

"I'm hungry." Dandy rose to his feet and left the cockpit. He was a bit hungry, but mostly he wanted to leave that room after that conversation. The tension inside of him manifested in staccato footsteps that almost sounded angry.

As he passed the lounge on his way to the kitchen, he heard a broken voice on the other side of sofa: "I'm s- sorry." It was the sort of distorted voice heard from somebody who'd been crying. Dandy took a few hesitant steps towards the sofa, and saw Meow curled up, facing away from him. "I'm so sorry." Dandy could then hear more clearly his muffled sobbing,

Dandy felt so uncertain. He'd never seen Meow show his emotion like this before, and it frankly scared him. However, comforting somebody just wasn't the Dandy thing to do. So he didn't. Meow curled up tighter has he heard Dandy's metal footsteps signify that the man was wordlessly walking away. The silent judgment twisted Meow's stomach, and he started to cry harder.

As Dandy re-entered the cockpit, he immediately sat down in the captain's chair and demanded, "QT. Find directions to the nearest planet... that has nice weather."

* * *

Poor Meow didn't see it coming. The football that collided against his skull as he was lying on the couch in the lounge playing on his phone, that is. With a small sniffle, he sat up and angrily glared at Dandy, who just regarded him with a warm Dandy smile. "What was that about?" He accused the human.

"What?" The man responded nonchalantly, "you never seen a football before? You're supposed to catch it, doofus."

As Meow picked up the football and prepared to launch it right back at Dandy's smug face, he interjected "Uh uh uh, that's... for catching aliens. We just landed on a planet where I found a lead on an unregistered race of aliens."

As the Betelgeusian shifted his attention to the football skeptically, Dandy made his way to the ramp off the ship with QT in tow. "Hold up!" Meow yelled, tucking the football under an armpit and running after Dandy. When Dandy opened up the door to the ramp, beautiful sunlight and fresh air poured in from the outside. As they ventured into the open, a beautiful day greeted them.

"Are you sure there are unregistered aliens here? This looks like a place where people would have vacation homes." Meow asked, looking around at the idyllic landscape.

"Uh... definitely... now come on." Dandy placated without turning around, leading his crew into an open field of ridiculously lush, verdant, grass that rose to just above the ankle. Meow looked around in wonder, seeing an orderly, welcoming forest at every edge around the clearing, and past those, snow-capped mountains. As he did so, Dandy ventured a bit further away in the field.

"Uh, Meow. Would you hand me the football?" Dandy called out to the Betelgeusian as he turned around. As Meow started to walk to him, he added, "Nah, just throw it over here!"

Meow looked at the football, and then back to Dandy. He was confused as to how this thing was supposed to help catch aliens, but with a shrug cocked an arm back, and hurled the ball at Dandy. The ball twirled chaotically in its arc to Dandy, and fell short.

"That was pathetic, cat." Dandy judged as he walked towards the ball and picked it up. Meow bristled at the comment, but Dandy continued, "When you throw a football, you're supposed to give it a nice spiral, like this!" He cocked back an arm as would a quarterback, and sent a quick, beautiful spiral right to Meow's chest.

Despite that the two were about thirty feet apart, Meow still flinched and closed his eyes as the ball came for him. He was surprised to find that the ball was safely between his two paws when he opened his eyes.

"Not bad," Dandy conceded with a smile, "but let's see you get it all the way back to me this time."

Meow gave a light, frustrated growl and teetered on a leg as he pulled an arm back. With a grunt of exertion, he launched the ball back at Dandy. The ball had an ungraceful teetering spiral, not unlike the seasonal tilt of the Earth's rotation. It also went sailing a good distance directly above Dandy's glorious pompadour. The human leapt upwards and tapped the ball with the tip of his right hand's fingers, deflecting its path vertically and then patiently waiting until it came right back to him.

"That's a little better," the human noted as he prepared to throw the ball back. "Now, go long!"

"Go wha-?" Meow had no idea what that meant at first, but he got an idea when Dandy threw the ball fast and high. Reacting quickly, he turned around and ran on all fours. It was in vain though, because ultimately the ball landed in front of him. He picked it up, turned back to Dandy's direction, and threw it back.

Meow's throw was going to come up short by quite a bit, but Dandy sprinted forward and caught it just as it was about to hit the ground. He chuckled at the repressed look of awe that Meow gave him. With that, the two started to play catch in earnest. They ran about as their passes either missed wildly (normally when Meow threw them) or intentionally forced the other to run (normally when Dandy threw them).

QT watched the two from a distance, enjoying the sight of both of them happy and having fun. The feeling that the robot got inside confused him, because he knew that robots weren't _supposed_ to feel, well, fuzzy inside, but he did. He wondered if this would go away if he ever managed to get upgraded._ I better not, then, just in case,_ QT thought to himself.

"I got it!" Meow yelled as he jumped for a particularly high pass. Straining for the ball, he accidentally unsheathed his claws, and as the ball collided with his paw, his claws sunk into it. Mutely, he brought it down to eye level, and pulled his claws out of it.

It wheezed out air like a rasping last breath and went limp. "Oops."

Dandy brought a palm up to his face, muttering to himself, "Of course. He just had to mess it up somehow."

Meow, in a slight panic, ran up to him with the deflated football, exclaiming, "Don't worry! I can fix it! I can fix it!" He put his mouth up to it and tried in vain to blow it back up. Dandy slapped the ball from his mouth into the ground.

"Well, it's no good anymore, so theres no use worrying about it," Dandy said, sighing. He was going to have to go to a certain shop and get it fixed at some point, because you can't find antiques like 20th century american footballs just anywhere.

Dandy smirked devilishly to himself as an idea came to him, telling Meow, "We'll just have to make do." Walking a bit, the man scooped down, and picked up a stick. It was heavy enough to throw, it seemed. Meow looked at Dandy, perplexed, and Dandy's smirk just grew.

"Umm..." Meow started, his feline face reflecting confusion, "I don't think we can really play catch with that."

"Who said anything about catch?" Dandy answered him, brandishing the stick.

Meow's open and surprised expression hardened as realization struck him. "No."

"Aww, come on! It'll be fun."

"There is no way in hell."

"What if I move it like this?" Dandy asked, making swirly and zig-zagging movements with the stick. The movements of the stick tapped into the more primal, feline part of Meow's brain, and the cat-like alien's eyes and head started to follow the stick.

Meow realized what was happening to him and shook his head harshly, blushing hotly and gritting his teeth. "Hey! That's not funny!"

"Are you kidding?" Dandy's deep voice rebuked, "This is hilarious!" The human resumed the movements of the stick, and then suddenly threw it at the ground in front of the Betelgeusian. Immediately, Meow pounced on it. Muttering angrily, he picked it up and thew it back at Dandy.

Dandy caught the stick, and resumed the hypnotic movements to get Meow's attention. Then he flung the stick again, except this time just above Meow's head. Meow straightened his body and caught the stick between his teeth.

"Good catch!" Dandy congratulated him. "Now bring it here." He demanded with a beckoning gesture of the hand. Meow sighed internally and walked back to Dandy unenthused, stick in mouth. Dandy grabbed the stick from him, adding, "Good boy. Now fetch!"

Dandy threw the stick farther out, and Meow immediately turned around and darted on all fours towards it, picking it from the pristine grass with his teeth. He then turned around and padded back to Dandy, going from quadruped locomotion to crouching on his two hind legs as he made it to Dandy so the human could grab the stick from his jaws.

As the two settled into playing fetch, Meow realized just how undignified and degrading this was for him. He also noticed that he didn't really care. It felt really nice to him to be able to let go and just chase a stick on all fours, and maybe get called a "good boy" when he brought it back. Being called a "good boy" just filled him with a fuzzy feeling inside that just beat being called a stinky, perverted freeloader.

They hardly noticed that the dual-stars that illuminated that planet's sky had already started to set as their game of fetch started, and that by this time only the fading light of one of the stars gave any light to their surroundings.

Dandy pointed this out as Meow brought back the stick for the Nth time. "It's getting pretty late, Meow."

He noticed that the cat-like creature was panting. A reasonable reaction to doing all the running for a while, he supposed. Dropping the stick from his mouth, Meow answered him, "Yeah, man. I'm pretty-" he gave a loud yawn, arms stretching and all, "tired."

The plush grass just seemed so inviting to the hot and tired Betelgeusian, so he pulled off his stifling hat to expose his head to the cooling air of the evening, and lied on the ground, lightly curling on his side.

"We can't go to sleep out here, Meow. Come on, lets go back up to the ship." Dandy asserted unconvincingly, already anticipating his friend's response.

"Why not? This grass is, like, _really_ comfy. And 'm tired," Meow complained, his voice drowsy and sluggish. Dandy rolled his eyes: this was the answer he expected. And in all honesty, he didn't really have a convincing argument against it, so Dandy sat down on the grass in front of Meow.

"Meow, are you sure you want to-" Dandy trailed off when he noticed that Meow's eyes were already shut, and that his breathing was slow and deep, showing the Betelgeusian to be asleep. Dandy sighed; Meow was a heavy sleeper, and nothing short of a kick was likely to wake him up. Looking at the sleeping alien, Dandy felt too protective to leave him alone outside on this unfamiliar planet.

The human kicked off his shoes and lied down on his back, and dozed off as he looked at the starry, starry night.

* * *

Dandy awoke to the sound of Meow moving. It was still nighttime, and the human was groggy and disoriented. He noticed, however, that there was a blanket draped over him and Meow, and a pillow under his head. _How did these get there?_ He thought to himself, until he looked to his left, away from Meow, and saw QT in nighttime mode. _Ah. Thanks QT._

He almost jumped when something soft brushed up against the right side of his face. He almost recoiled, but noticed that it was one of Meow's eight ear-thingies. The cat-like alien had crawled up to Dandy and rested the side of his head on the human's shoulder.

Dandy thought about shoving the Betelgeusian away from him and saying something about personal space, but he was tired, and he decided that he didn't really mind. Instead, the human brought his right arm up and rested his hand on his friend's head, scratching the fur behind the ears lightly. It actually felt pretty soft, and _didn't_ stink like before the shower.

"Dandy?" Meow's groggy voice muttered.

"Yeah?" Dandy responded nonchalantly, as if they weren't, well, kind of cuddling.

"Thanks for playing with me."


End file.
